Accountability

Jim Cramer succinctly summed up yesterday’s market action on his Mad Money show by stating that it’s all about accountability.

Prior to Saturn entering Virgo late last summer, accountability wasn’t on any Wall Street trading screen. With Jupiter through Pluto in fire and air signs for the last 2+ years, fundamentals didn’t matter. Virgo is the accountant, and this ushered in the financials taking write downs on their more risky asset-backed securities. Then Jupiter entered Capricorn in mid-December. Jupiter had enjoyed a year of buoyant expansion as it was in its “home” sign of Sagittarius. Capricorn is ruled by Saturn, which relates to the principle of contraction. Capricorn’s motto is “What you sow, you shall reap”.

Yesterday’s Capricorn New Moon solidified this. Virgo and Capricorn are earth energies, so they reinforce each other. Earth energies* require that there be an underlying structure of solid support. Earth is a cautious and conservative energy that gets very nervous and worried about economic/financial matters.

The indices spent most of the day alternating from moderately up to choppy/mixed with the NASDAQ slightly stronger than the DOW and S&P. Then late in the trading session, AT&T (T) said they were disconnecting more customers due to unpaid bills. Despite the fact that this DOW component derives only 20% of its revenue from landline phones and high-speed internet, the news reinforced the mounting evidence that the consumer is spent out.

News and communication devices – telephones, internet, etc. are ruled by Mercury which rules Virgo. Suddenly investors were unable to shrug off the rest of the day’s gloomy housing and financial news, once again plunging the indices negative. The DOW has had the worst 5 days of the year since 1978 – the last time Saturn was in Virgo.

Since the economy has entered a cycle of contraction (recession), stock valuations have nowhere to go but work their way down into a bear market.